1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to flexible ribbon cable connectors and, particularly, to versatile terminal members for use in the ribbon cable connectors. The present invention also relates to a terminal array comprising a series of generally bifurcated versatile terminal members which are regularly connected by means of a metal carrier strip, but which can be separated from the metal carrier strip to provide the individual terminal members that can be subsequently trimmed to suit to a particular type of the ribbon cable connector.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In various electric appliances, a diversity of electric cable connectors that differ in type, shape and size are employed. Of them, there is known a flexible ribbon cable connector, or a flat flexible cable connector, including one or more terminal members each having contact and positioning prongs and a lead element. The lead elements of the terminal members are soldered, or otherwise electrically connected, with circuit elements on, for example, a printed circuit board, while a flexible ribbon cable, or a flat flexible cable, having a plurality of electric conductors laid parallel to each other and bundled together into a generally ribbon-like configuration, can be inserted into the ribbon cable connector to permit some or all of the electric conductors to be electrically connected with the contact prongs of the terminal members.
To meet a high density integration of electric circuit elements on a support surface such as, for example, a printed circuit board, the ribbon cable connector of a type adapted to be mounted on the printed circuit board, generally referred to as a surface-mounting design, has come to be largely employed. With this ribbon cable connector of the surface-mounting design, the lead elements of the terminal members are soldered directly to contact pads on a surface of the printed circuit board with the ribbon cable connector held substantially immovable.
This ribbon cable connector of the surface-mounting design is generally divided into a number of categories: a straight type in which the flexible ribbon cable is inserted into the ribbon cable connector from top, i.e., in a direction generally perpendicular to the printed circuit board, and a right-angled type in which the flexible ribbon cable is inserted into the ribbon cable connector from lateral direction, i.e., in a direction generally parallel to the printed circuit board. The right-angled type can further be divided into a top-contact model, in which the contact and positioning prongs come to be positioned above and beneath the flat ribbon cable then inserted into the ribbon cable connector, and a bottom-contact model in which the contact and positioning prongs come to be positioned beneath and above the flat ribbon cable then inserted into the ribbon cable connector.
These diverse types of ribbon cable connectors employ the terminal members of different shape. For example, in the straight type, the ribbon cable connector may employ the terminal members having no lead elements; and in the right-angled type, the ribbon cable connector may employ the terminal members having only one lead element. Hitherto, a different shape of the terminal members are required for each type of the ribbon cable connector and, hence, a manufacturer must have stocks of terminal members of different shape so long as all of those types of ribbon cable connectors are manufactured and assembled. Also, when it comes to the manufacture of the terminal members of different shape, press dies for each shape of the terminal members must be made available. This requires not only a relatively large space for storage of the parts, but also a time-consuming and complicated job of taking an inventory of the parts, both resulting in a substantial increase of the manufacturing costs.